Robert Wilson - Julian Comstock - A Story of 22-nd Century America

Extraordinary events! I mean to set them down before I sleep, though it is already very late.

After the evening meal Julian summoned me to his quarters and asked me to bring along my typewriter. I carried the machine (no small task, in my weakened and hungry condition) to the upstairs study of the former mayor’s house, and Julian instructed me to keep it ready, for there was a message he wished to dictate.

Then, to my astonishment, he summoned an adjutant and ordered Private Langers to be brought into his presence.

“Langers!” I exclaimed as soon as the adjutant had gone out. “What do you want with Langers? Has he committed some fresh outrage? I saw him at the hospital, perpetrating his clerical fraud; but I don’t suppose that’s what this is all about.”

“It isn’t—or only in part. And please, Adam—you might be startled by some of what I have to say to him; but it’s essential to the success of my plans that you don’t interrupt or correct me while Langers is in the room with us.”

This was a sterner tone than Julian usually took in my presence; but I reminded myself that we were at war, and under siege, and that he was a Major General, and I was not. I promised not to speak out of turn. Of course my curiosity was profoundly aroused.

We shivered for most of half an hour—Julian heated his quarters parsimoniously, to conserve the supply of coal—before Langers arrived. Langers was shivering, too, as he stumbled into the room, perhaps not entirely from the cold. He looked at Julian apprehensively. “Sir?” he said.

Julian put on his most imperial manner. [A skill every Eupatridian of Julian’s class has mastered: it consists of regarding the world and all its inhabitants as if they emitted a faint offensive odor.]

“Please sit down, Private.”

Langers inserted himself into a chair by the stove. “You called for me, sir?”

“Obviously I did, and here you are. I’ve received a complaint about you.”

Langers—no doubt recalling what had happened to him when Sam gave out the truth about his Lucky Mug during the Saguenay Campaign—seemed almost to shrivel with dismay, and his expression grew even more furtive and wary. “It’s ungrounded,” he muttered.

“You haven’t heard the charge yet.”

“I know it’s unjustified because my conduct has been above reproach. These past weeks I’ve labored exclusively at the field hospital, sir, consoling the sick and the dying.”

“I know all about that,” said Julian, “and I would commend you for it, but for one thing.”

“What thing ?” Langers demanded, feigning indignation, not very successfully.

“One of my regimental commanders discovered several suspicious items hidden under your bedroll. These included a large number of gold rings and leather billfolds.”

“Well?” Langers said, though he reddened. “A man can harbor a few keepsakes, can’t he?”

“No, he may not, not if the same items have been reported as missing from the mortally wounded. I have a corroborating statement from one of the doctors who saw you at the field hospital, your right hand raised over an injured man in a benediction while the left hand stripped a wallet from the victim’s pocket. As for the rings, ordinarily such ornaments are sent to grieving widows, not squirreled away under the bedrolls of counterfeit Deacons.”

“Well, I—” Langers began, but he faltered. The evidence against him was shocking, and he had lost the opportunity to mount a defense. His naturally long and equine face seemed to grow even longer. “Sir—the hospital is an awful place—it affects a man’s mind, over time—perhaps the circumstances drove me to irrational acts—”

“Perhaps they did, or perhaps it was just your acquisitive nature. But don’t worry, Private. I didn’t call you here to scold you or punish you. I mean to give you an opportunity to redeem yourself.”

Langers was not so naive as to grasp that straw without squinting at it first. “I’m sure I thank you—redeem myself how exactly?”

“Be patient. Before we go on, I need to dictate a letter. Adam, will you write it down on that machine of yours?”

I suppressed my astonishment at these unfolding events and said, “Yes, certainly, Julian—I mean, General Comstock.”

“Good. Are you ready?” (I applied paper to platen, hastily.) “Put in a top line with the date and mark it as from my headquarters, Army of the Laurentians, Northern Division, Town of Striver , Lake Melville , Eastern Labrador, etc.” I clacked away at this task. My typewriting skills had improved since I first acquired the machine, and I was proud of my speed, though it set no records. “Address it to Major Walton, General Headquarters, Newfoundland.”

I did so. Then Julian dictated the body of the text, which I will set down here while it remains fresh in my mind, including the unusual capitalizations which Julian demanded: This is to let you know that, after much solemn deliberation, and in the face of continuing enemy encirclement and bombardment, I have resolved to deploy the MECHANISM we earnestly hoped would never be used in civilized warfare.

I do not take this decision lightly. It is no easy thing to enter into a war as brutal as this one, and to make it yet more inhuman by the employment of such a cruel DEVICE. It is not the prospect of the IMMEDIATE death of countless enemy soldiers which pangs me, for that is the nature of war, so much as the knowledge of the LINGERING EFFECTS, in which death comes only after hours or even days of intolerable suffering. You know that in councils of war I have argued against the deployment of this WEAPON, which is so vicious in its workings that any Christian trembles at the mention of it.

But I find myself in a position that allows no other outcome. My army has been besieged, and we are sent no SUPPLIES or REINFORCEMENTS.

Thousands of loyal men confront starvation, and I dare not surrender them to the mercies of the Mitteleuropan Army. Therefore I have resolved to do everything in my power to deliver the troops, or some fraction of them, to safety, even if the conduct of this war is made that much more HELLISH and SATANIC.

You may pass this information to the General Staff and to the Chief Executive.

God help me for taking this decision. PRAY FOR US, Major Walton! We act within days.

“Add the usual salutations,” Julian said, ignoring my gap-jawed amazement not only at the contents of the letter but at the unusually ecclesiastical tone of it, “and give it to me to sign. Thank you, Adam.”

I did as he asked, though I could hardly contain my questions and anxieties.

“What does this business have to do with me?” Private Langers demanded. “I don’t know anything about these dreadful things!”

“Of course you don’t; but a message, to be useful, has to be delivered. That’s your task, Private Langers. The letter will be sewn into a satchel. You will carry the satchel past the Dutch lines to the American fortifications at the Narrows , and personally hand it to the ranking officer there.”

“Across enemy lines!” The Private’s eyes were as wide as Comstock dollars.

“That’s correct.”

Impossible!” Langers exclaimed; and I was inclined to agree with him, though I kept my silence, as instructed.

“Perhaps it is,” Julian said, “but I need someone to make the attempt. You’re healthy enough, and it seems to me you have a powerful motive for succeeding at it. The choice is stark, Private Langers. You can accept the assignment, or you can stay here and face exposure for robbing wounded men.”

“You wouldn’t tell the infantry about my indiscretion!”

“I would—at the next Sunday meeting! The men don’t like to think of a tract-peddler stealing from them in their most vulnerable moment.”